That long, boring, filler post.

So, another blog.  I guess I’ve gotta catch ya’ll up on my life!  Not a whole ton has happened since Iguazú, but two weekends and nearly 3 weeks did pass, and so I’m gonna talk about that time.

The first week back was a pretty relaxed one, though I was being stressed by an extra class I still had.  I dropped it within a few days, so that was resolved.  The weekend after Iguazú was homework weekend, minus productivity.  I found myself in the corner/bar restaurant more than once doing homework till late (though in reality I go there to hopefully talk to interesting people, usually succeed if I am there really late).  This leads me to last week.  Last week I had my first instances of my grupos de immersión cultural.  Culture immersion groups, obviously.  After my one class till 1 on Thursday, I have 2 hours of my music group and, 3 hours later, an hour and a half of my conversation group. 

Music group was just at its beginnings, of course, but I really enjoyed myself.  We played around on congas, cajónes, and a few other instruments that I cannot name yet.  The beats were really simple because we’re building off the Colombian Cumbia right now and the experience with music is very varied.  I’ve never played a single percussion instrument, but I can at least read music and have played before.  The leader for the music group is an incredibly chill argentine musician who just wants to play and get into it.  He’s…just…cool.  Gotta appreciate him.

After that I went over to my friend Sarah’s house for a while to kill time before the conversation group that she also had.  It rained on us a lot on the trip there…woo.  So I had wet feet until I got home really late that night.  The “3” hours went really quickly based on travel time, and we ended up a bit late to the conversation group, but we met this guy named Federico.  He was incredibly interesting, spoke GREAT (only a few errors, with like have and has, and some pretty accented words) English, and taught us some things about castellano.  We talked about dances (he dances Salsa lots), school, language, FOOTBALL (I was thrilled to meet an Argentine that was really into their football), and different countries and peoples.  After THIS, a group of 3 of us were hungering and had plans to go eat, but everybody was headed to a boliche to try to find free pizza.  Which we did, and we did get pizza.  It was good, fairly free, but it took FOREVER to get and there were great waits in between slices.  Oh well I suppose.  I left earlier, about 12:15 I think, wanting to get home and get some sleep so I could be up at a reasonable time on Friday.  I walked with Max to the buses, waited till he got on one, then decided on which bus I wanted to take.  I couldn’t find the stop, walked an extra two blocks, and ended up having to ask a random waiter.  At the same time as I asked, a black guy was failing at ordering a beer in Spanish, so I offered to help.  Afterwards, the guy told me to sit down and have a beer with him.  I asked if he was brazilian (which I kind of doubted) and he told me in pretty good English that he was actually South African.  I decided he was way too interesting to just walk away from, so I sat down and we talked for a long time.  It was a fun conversation, but he was definitely drunk and for the first time I definitely had too much alcohol myself.  I have no ideas what my limits are, and didn’t realize that I was finishing the glasses quickly and thus going to be feeling it MUCH more quickly (for those of you who haven’t realized, the legal drinking age is 18 here, and I’ve wanted to experience this part of the culture too, the national beer – Quilmes).  I was trying to get on my way, but somehow he kept filling up my glass and by the time I got going it was about 2:10 and I was realllllly feeling the beer.  I got home with no issues, at least, and didn’t even have to wait too long for the bus, which was nice.  There was a distinct lack of bathrooms on the wait/bus ride though, and it’s been years since I’ve had to go THAT BADLY.  I made it home though, went to sleep, and didn’t feel any sort of headache or hangover in the morning, so I probably didn’t go as far as I thought I did.  I know I didn’t have much beer, actually, it was just the speed at which I had it and my inexperience….I feel pretty bad about all that, anyway.

Then, last weekend I just lazily sort of did homework.  I saw a show one night, at some random hostel, performed by a musician from Philly that I met at the corner bar/restaurant.  He did a Jack Johnson cover of Banana Pancakes, Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty, and loads of other stuff, finishing with Sublime.  It was great!  Getting food was hard.  Oh, and I also saw a BAFICI movie (the independent film festival here, it’s supposedly one of the most prestigious ones) which was very confusing and not very good…but it was free.  So no complaints.  I ran into 2 other Americans (both of which speak great Spanish) that I also met at the corner place and went to a bar with them and two argentines that were with them.  We chatted for a good while, then I spent a little longer at the corner place and ate something, finally going to sleep at about 5am.  Sunday I spent around 4 and a half hours in a nearby café with a few friends doing homework.  I had one of the best banana smoothies of my life there, and discovered that that particular café “El Bar Poesía” is one of the best I’ve been in.  I read a TON of poetry for my literature class (as should be!) and generally accomplished a lot for that class.  

This week hasn’t been too special so far.  I had two tango classes on Monday, as per usual, and both were really enjoyable.  There was a time or two when I messed up because I just…kind of lost my train of thought.  I was running on 4 and a half hours, and I’ve determined that as the cause.  Yesterday, Tuesday, I had my regular classes, which were nothing special.  I didn’t feel so good because I heard that my Aunt Patty fell and broke her hip while in Seattle.  I prayed about it, however, and I believe that God really answered that with soothing me through tangible means, through friends.  And I finally took advantage of the time I have after classes yesterday and got a lot done.  I caught up on emails all the way until the current, including super long messages and stuff.  Now I’m only one behind again, and as of NOW my blog is up to date to today.

Today I usually have class until 1, and then head to Casa Del Niño, a place where I volunteer for a few hours each week.  That should be explained – it’s for my class “Seminario de Aprendizaje y Servicio/Seminar on Community Service and Volunteerism.”  I’ve had it two weeks so far, and both times have been great successes.  It’s incredibly fun to play with the kids and try to teach them things (we played baseball last time, but everybody already knew what they were doing).  Even just talking to them is great.  The challenging part is controlling them, keeping them from fighting and cutting in line, and understanding them.  Their castellano is quiet, slurred, and very rapid.  So I get about 30% of what they say at best.  Oh well, I’m learning.  I learned the words for tag, hide and go seek, the monkeybars, the baseball bat, and for pushing a swing.  Today my class was unexpectedly canceled, so I’m trying to be productive.  I have Casa del Niño in an hour and 45 minutes!  :D

Abrazos para todos, desde Buenos Aires (Hugs for all, from Buenos Aires)

And then my jaw hit the dirt path so hard!

First off:  Wow, I’ve been pretty tardy on this blog post (this trip wasn’t last weekend but the one before).  I’ve either been A) Too lazy, B) Too tired, or C) Too busy….mostly letter A though.  I could have made this post before.  Oh well, here it is, and it’s gonna be a fairly big one.  Table of Contents:  Travel to Iguazú on Thursday, Iguazú day 1 (Friday), Iguazú day 2 (Saturday), Iguazú/heading home on Sunday…okay I’ll make my finalized class schedule a separate post, you convinced me.  This is just going to be about Iguazú.

Traveling to Iguazú (Thursday)

We all met up at the big train and colectivo (city buses) and microbus (big comfortable nice bus that you ride to distant places) hub/nexus in Retiro around 2:30pm.  This was fairly well planned out, believe it or not, and we actually were there on time, bought minutes for our phones (and snacks at a nearby cheap Chinese Mercado :D)  and met up with close to zero issues.  Well, we had to wait for the other half of our group for about 10 minutes not knowing where they were, but that’s NOTHING compared to the meeting-up woes we’ve had before.  Getting on the bus wasn’t a big deal either, and soon we were on our way.  A microbus is actually very comfortable and feels very airliner-esque as far as the seats go.  We only paid for “semi-cama,” which means that the seats lean back pretty far but not as far as “full cama.”  Since they cost less, we lived with it.  The drive there was mostly during the night, so there wasn’t too much to see most of the time.  We were on the top level of the bus, so whenever the bus had any sort of issue with the ground we felt it a lot.  It was fun.  Also fun: going to the insanely tiny nasty bathroom while being tossed around.  It’s REAL fun when you’re actually in the act of urinating, too.  No wonder there was …liquid on the floor.  One must wear shoes to the bathroom.  I was NOT the cause of the wet reality in the bathroom though, I was incredibly accurate. 

We conversed a ton and watched terrible movies all the way there, sleeping about an hour and 15 minutes (I obviously wanted much more but was incapable, lame) for the whole night.  Movies included: Something terrible with The Rock (we renamed him La Piedra in honor of the Spanish language) which they played TWICE, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Nicholas Cage, also terrible, didn’t watch) and I think that was about it.  The food was cool though.  We got some medialunas and coffee (+sugar in the coffee, mala idea yo) and an interesting kind of cena (did we have lunch too?  Can’t remember) which was pretty decent.  Minus the insanely preserved slices of ham…those were questionable.  But I ated them.  The ‘snacks’ we had (mostly cookies) were very very appreciated.  Mmm dessert.

Iguazú Day 1 (Friday)

In the morning as we neared Iguazú with the sunrise I found that we were driving through Selva, rainforest, and that it looks absolutely beautiful in the morning.  Also: rainbow (arco iris for you Argengringos out there). 

Puerto Iguazú is the small town near the falls (like 8 miles or something, so not THAT near), and it was a pretty nice place.  The people we met were all very nice.  The hostel was pretty cool, and so were the showers we took upon arrival.  Literally cool, like there wasn’t warm water.  But it’s okay because Iguazú was pretty humid, tropical, and HOT.  The pool was a joke.  Oh well.  We waited for two others to join us that took a different, later bus.  When they got there and got settled/showered we hopped onto the bus to the falls.  A few hundred pesos later we were inside, walking around.  It’s a humongous park area, so there’s a lot of walking to do and a lot of falls to see.  We just kind of started walking towards the closer falls.  Things we saw:

-BIG BUGS:

-A MILLION AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES:

-Coatis.

-Some great foliage.

-A split of our group (because we were too slow, taking pictures of everything) and consequent shenanigans with the hilarious park signs.

-Lots of fun joking about things.

-Amazing, random sights.

And then we got to the waterfalls.  THIS:

I don’t know what to say about Iguazú falls except that they are INSANELY beautiful.  I can’t imagine going through life and not seeing them, honestly.  You MUST go.  You won’t regret it.

That night Sara cooked us ravioli with a vegetable sauce for dinner.  It was incredibly economical and incredibly yummy.  During/after that we watched the Argentina – USA soccer game on TV (1-1 final, lame, go Argentina!).  After THAT we pulled out the homework and I came across a part in which I needed to “interview” some Argentines about the economical crisis of 2001.  So with some egging on I just walked straight up to some and asked them about it.  What followed was over an hour of conversation (mostly me just listening) and gaining a wealth of knowledge directly from Argentines that were there.  Amazing.  Then we got onto historical topics of how the crisis came to be and eventually we discussed the Policia.  The policia isn’t exactly loved here, lol.  They poured me a beer repeatedly and welcomed me VERY warmly and it was one of my best experiences in Argentina yet. 

We also made some decidedly cool friends in a British couple from Surrey, south of London.  We talked to them loads on and off, here and there as we were around them in the same sleeping room.  They were very interesting, of course, very nice, and I gave them some instruction for when they got into Buenos Aires.  Important note: they say Nike and Adidas in a very funny way, but I can’t exactly relay that through text very well.

I didn’t sleep too much that night, but I slept GREAT.

Iguazú Day 2 (Saturday)

We had a slow morning and half of us went to the falls earlier than the other half (I was in the late group).  Breakfast consisted of a crepe (YEAH) smeared with dulce de leche, some TERRIBLE “natural” orange juice, amazingly soft bread with jelly or dulce, and frosted flakes with milk that was far too warm.  Pretttttty good I guess.  My tummy disliked the frosted flakes for whatever reason.

Back to the falls we went.  From there we followed a certain ‘nature trail’ to get to the area for swimming.  Turns out it was below a waterfall.  How can you match an experience like this?  It felt INCREDIBLE to get in the water (and being directly under the waterfall…hurt, haha) finally because the day was SWELTERING and humid, as was the day prior. 

After that we met up with the others who had arrived earlier, including 2 dudes that were saying somewhere else but are likewise from our program and headed to La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil’s Throat).  I’m not sure I can remember the last time I was this in awe of God’s work.  Look at this stuff:

I was SO blown away.  I couldn’t walk away from there without thinking about how powerful God himself is, and without being utterly disquieted by his handiwork.  I haven’t a doubt that he made that, one way or another.

We had another good night back at the hostel, hanging out and having a slightly less successful but still good dinner (the cook and+1 left that night).  The remaining 4 of us played BS and Pictionary.  Pictionary in Spanish can be very hard since there’s a high probability that the partner will NOT know the word in the first place…so that was interesting.  We ended up nearly tying and just left it like that, with no clear-cut winner.  Good game, yo.  We also taught two argentine guys how to play BS.  They were TERRIBLE at it (though they claimed it was because they were just tired).  Great times!  Then I wanted to sleep but I ended up hanging around with Lucas, a guy that works at the hostel, and watching TV with him.  More good on top of good = great night!  Then we slept, not enough of course, and had a slow morning.  The trip back was better for sleep..but that’s not hard to do when you slept no more than an hour and 15 on the trip there.  I slept more like 4 broken hours in total, which was frustrating but good.  The food was worse, in general, but we enjoyed ourselves….and the movies were interesting.  They showed American Pie, American Pie II, American Wedding, American Pie Band Camp, American Pie: The Naked Mile.  It was incredible that they thought that was remotely appropriate, haha.  After that…Another weird movie that began with some dude getting hit by a car out of the corner of the scene…and lots, I repeat lots of drugs.  And sex.  Then they turned it off like 50 minutes into it, and we STILL didn’t know what it was called or what was going on.  Then they played a crazy Dwayne Johnson/The Rock movie (MORE of this guy?!) that included plenty of killing and intensity.  We conversed a lot, again, but we were delirious tired so it was not quite the quality of the trip there.  I got back around 6:45am, then went home and slept a few hours.  After that I had only one class for the day, a visit to a museum for a few hours with my tango class (happy I didn’t have to dance for once, I was dead). 

And that was Iguazú.  Unbelievable.  Loads of fun.  I really missed my brother though, it was his birthday while I was on the trip, and I really reallllly wished I could spend time with him.  More about the last 2 ½ weeks in the next post…I promise to try to work on it sooner rather than later.